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Unit 4: Major Literary Terms-IV

elaborately structured poem praising or glorifying an event or individual, describing nature Notes
intellectually as well as emotionally.
Greek odes were originally poetic pieces accompanied by symphonic orchestras. As time passed
on, they gradually became known as personal lyric compositions whether sung or recited (with or
without accompanied music). For some, the primary instrument of choice was either the aulos or
the lyre (the most revered instrument of the Ancient Greeks). The written ode, as it was practiced by
the Romans, returned to the lyrical form of the Lesbian lyricists.
There are three typical forms of odes: the Pindaric, Horatian, and irregular. Pindaric odes follow
the form and style of Pindar. Horatian odes follow conventions of Horace; the odes of Horace
deliberately imitated the Greek lyricists such as Alcaeus and Anacreon. Odes by Catullus, as well as
other poetry of Catullus, was particularly inspired by Sappho. Irregular odes are rhyming, but they
do not employ the three-part form of the Pindaric ode nor the two-or four-line stanza of the Horatian
ode.

4.3.1 English Ode

An ode is typically a lyrical verse written in praise of, or dedicated to someone or something which
captures the poet’s interest or serves as an inspiration for the ode. The initial model for English odes
was Horace, who used the form to write meditative lyrics on various themes. The earliest odes in the
English language, using the word in its strict form, were the Epithalamium and Prothalamium of
Edmund Spenser.
In the 17th century the most important original odes in English are those of Abraham Cowley and
Andrew Marvell. Marvell, in his Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland uses a regular
form (two four-foot lines followed by two three-foot lines) modelled on Horace, while Cowley
wrote “Pindarique” odes which had irregular patterns of line lengths and rhyme schemes, though
they were iambic. The principle of Cowley’s Pindariques was based on a misunderstanding of
Pindar’s metrical practice but was widely imitated nonetheless, with notable success by John Dryden.
The English ode’s most common rhyme scheme is ABABCDECDE.

4.4 Pastoral

Pastoral is a mode of literature in which the author employs various techniques to place the complex
life into a simple one. Paul Alpers distinguishes pastoral as a mode rather than a genre, and he
bases this distinction on the recurring attitude of power; that is to say that pastoral literature holds
a humble perspective toward nature. Thus, pastoral as a mode occurs in many types of literature
(poetry, drama, etc.) as well as genres (most notably the pastoral elegy).
Gifford defines pastoral in three ways. The first way emphasizes the historical literary perspective
of the pastoral in which authors recognize and discuss life in the country and in particular the life of
a shepherd. This is summed up by Leo Marx with the phrase “No shepherd, no pastoral”. The
second type of the pastoral is literature that “describes the country with an implicit or explicit
contrast to the urban”. The third type of pastoral depicts the country life with derogative
classifications.
Traditionally, pastoral refers to the lives of herdsmen in a romanticized, exaggerated, but
representative way. In literature, the adjective ‘pastoral’ refers to rural subjects and aspects of life in
the countryside among shepherds, cowherds and other farm workers that are often romanticized
and depicted in a highly unrealistic manner. The pastoral life is usually characterized as being
closer to the Golden age than the rest of human life. The setting is a Locus Amoenus, or a beautiful
place in nature, sometimes connected with images of the Garden of Eden. An example of the use of
the genre is the short poem Robene and Makyne which also contains the conflicted emotions often
present in the genre. A more tranquil mood is set by Christopher Marlowe’s well known lines from
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love:

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